Jason Bateman and Will Arnett have a couple of videos infecting the internet — oh, wait, I guess the term is "viral videos", isn't it? Nah, I think I'll go with infecting. They are ads for Orbit gum. They are edgy. Edgy gum commercials. How can they fail to be a laff riot? Here is the first (transcript below the fold):
[The logo of Dumbdumb, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman's venture flashes on the screen, follow by “Dirty Shorts Presents” (Orbit logo)]
[An exterior shot of a quiet suburban home. A dog barks]
Mom: I wanted to come up here [inaudible] to show everyone [inaudible]
[Mom (Rachael Harris), Dad (Jason Bateman), and Teen (Aubrey Plaza) are in Teen's bedroom as she prepares for prom]
[On Screen: “The Prom Date”]
Teen: [Mom and Teen futz with Teen's dress] stop, stop
Dad: When did my beautiful girl turn into such a beautiful young woman?
Teen: [rolls eyes] Um, I don't know, it happened about four years ago, Dad. [Mom nods] Please don't talk like that in front of Skip, okay? This is my senior prom and I don't want my date to totally freak out.
Dad: Okay
Teen: I don't even want him to meet you.
Mom: Now I've spoken to him several times, and he seems very polite
Dad: I know honey, but these days, these boys know how to act all polite, and before you know it, they've got their facebook all up in your twitter.
Teen: Ugh, Is this a joke? Am I on America's Lamest Parents?
Dad: Nope.
Mom: [places hands on Teen's back] Your father and I care very much about you.
Teen: [shows disgust] Mom, your hands are sweaty.
Dad: We do, we care a great deal, we care that you're dating a boy that's worthy of our little angel, okay? Not some boy who only...
Teen: [interrupts] He's not some boy. He's my soulmate. [plays with hair] I've learned so much from him.
Dad: Hmm. I had a soulmate once. [Turning to mom] Did you meet Karen?
Mom: Yep.
Dad: The sole thing I wanted to do with her was mate.
Teen: [looks disgusted, interjects] What?!?
Dad: Do you understand what I'm saying? Ok, I had one thing on my mind that's all, and I guarantee you the only thing on this guy's mind is the same thing. So, let's honor the curfew, let's make sure you're in bed by 8 o'clock tonight.
Teen: Dad, the prom starts at 9.
Dad: Then you're not going.
Mom: Okay, well that does sound a little overprotective, sweetheart.
Teen: [under her breath] Sound overprotective? It's being overprotective.
Dad: Let's go with 10.
Teen: Ten?!? No way!
Dad: A solid hour. [Mom nods, annoyed with Dad but backing him up.]
Mom: Honey, relax. Here, have a piece of Orbit.
Dad: I don't care if I seem overprotective, [Mom is unwrapping a pack of Orbit] I'm your father for heaven's sakes. [Mom: I know, I...] I'm a father for heaven's sakes, [Mom finally opens the package of gum. A chime chimes.] You know [Dad holds a piece of gum in his hand] what I mean? [doorbell]
Dad:There's Skip!
Mom: Here we go!
Teen: God. [Starts to fix her hair]
Mom: No hairspray, please.
[Dad, Mom and Teen walk down a hallway]
Dad: Nothing good happens after 10, Katie. Sally, tell her.
Mom: Okay, well there was a man in a very [Dad: Not now] attractive van
Teen: What are you talking about? Mom, that's weird!
[Dad opens door]
Dad: Skip!
[Skip (Will Arnett) appears, wearing a tuxedo and what appears to be a fake moustache. He reaches out his arms, makes a creepy sound and heads to embrace Teen]
Teen: Mom, Dad, this is Skip.
Skip: Hi.
[Mom and Dad look annoyed]
Dad: That's Mr. McGovern from social studies.
Mom: Yeah.
[Skip shuts the door]
Skip: Skip McGovern! [Teen futzs with Skip's bow-tie] We are in the same social studies class.
Dad: [Mom stands next to Dad with her mouth agape, incredulous] You teach that class. I met you at parent-teacher night; you told me you were giving my daughter excellent marks.
Skip: Now nothing that a good set of leggings can't cover [wink].
Mom: Katie did say that the two of you were in school together. I just assumed it was a student.
Skip: That's a two-way street. Sometimes she does let me play student too. Isn't that right, kittykat? [Holds Teen]
Teen: [Quietly] Yeah.
Skip: Lines do get blurred, though. Sometimes it's kinda hard to know who's.. teaching.......is it who or whom?
Teen: I don't know.
Skip: Who gives a crap, right. What's important is...
Dad: I'm gonna stop you right there, Mr. McGovern.
Skip: Please, do call me Skip.
Dad: No. You seem very mature for my daughter.
Skip: Oh, thank you! I'm barely forty. This is a fake mustache, actually.
Dad: [uninterested] Is it?
Skip: It is. Truth be told, I'm kinda in the middle of a dicey breakup right now with a gal who... [loud, annoyed, incredulous] is suddenly shocked to find out that I don't want to move to Michigan with her and watch her go to college. It's like, I'm not in this for the long haul! [You're so.] Never have been! I've a free f**king spirit, man!
Dad: Here's the way the rest of this night's gonna go...
Mom: Jerry, take it easy Jerry. [places pack of gum in front of Dad's face, harp harps]
Dad: Thank you. You're gonna get inside your car, [puts gum in mouth] you're gonna drive away from here.
Skip: Boy, I'd like to get my paws on some of that gum, [creepily draws circles around mouth with finger] freshen up the old kisshole.
Mom: Sorry, it was the last piece.
Dad: Sorry, that was the last piece.
Teen: Did you bring the corsage?
Skip: No I did not. [rushes of to elsewhere in the room] Because I'm making you one!
Dad: I gotta tell you, honey. [music picks up in tempo, intensity] I've never felt so much... uncontrollable......
[music reaches crescendo, Mom and Dad turn to camera, teeth flicker, chime chimes]
Mom: Pride.
Dad: Yeah.
Mom: Yeah.
Dad: Yeah. In a school filled with immaturity, and piercings, and tattoos [mom flinches], she has chosen a man. Not a boy, okay. He's got an education, he's got a salary, he's got his own car.
Mom: A top-of-the-line mustache.
Dad: She's making such good decisions for a girl who's just recently turned 18. Could you feel any safer?
Mom: I know that I will sleep like a baby tonight. [Dad kisses Mom on the forehead.]
Dad: That makes two of us. [contented noise] And the twins in the crib.
Skip: Oh! What time to I need to bring recently legal back? [winks]
Mom: Huh. She may be our daughter, but she's your student, so...
Skip: Whenever I'm done teaching her huh...[laughs] By the way, for brekkies, I like a fresh muffin, [covers side of his mouth and talks under his breath while pointing to Teen] and somebody's addicted to sausage [laughs].
Teen: Hey. [Teen and Skip start to go through the door to the yard]
Dad: Ooh! Skip! Look what Jerry found. [Hands skip a piece of gum.]
Skip: [Looks amazed and deeply pleased] Now that is what I call getting lucky.
Teen: Come on.
[Skip and Teen are walking together on the lawn.]
Skip: I'm joking, would I call getting lucky what it actually... [unintelligible] [chime chimes, Skip and Teen stop dead in their tracks, Skip drops his arm from around Teen] Let's go to that prom and finding you a nice boy your own age to dance with.
Teen: Ewww.
Skip: [looking at Mom and Dad in the doorway] Don't you worry. I'll call when we get there, just to let you know that we got there safe.
Dad: Aw, Skip, you're the best.
Skip: You're the best.
Dad: You're the best.
Skip: You're best. You're doublin' besties. [laughs]
Mom: He called us the besties!
Dad: He did.
[sigh]
Dad: Maybe one day if we're lucky, he's gonna call us Mom and Dad.
Mom: Oh-ho-ho.
[Screen fades to black, displaying text: A good clean feeling no matter what. Then there are psychedelic backgrounds, presumably matching Orbit's new packaging. The new text reads: Orbit. A good clean feeling no matter what]
He's her father, for Heaven's sake. That means he owns her most significant aspect, her reproductive organs. They are his, dammit — he spawned them. And no other male is going to get his nasty hands on them!
Well, we've all seen this before, eh? Oh, but clever plot twist! Her date isn't just any reproductive organ-filching guy — he's daughter's predatory, middle-aged teacher! Now the lulz can begin for realz!
Fortunately, lest this rampant competition between middle-aged men over teen-aged reproductive organs in a prom dress get messy, Orbit gum appears to instantaneously have all the effects of a powerful narcotic, without slowing you down a whit!
What's more, it also has the Jerry Maguire make-ya-wanna-be-a-better-man effect, too, so the predatory teacher breaks off his droll running commentary on the sexual acts he intends to engage in with his student, and decides to find her a nice boy her own age to dance with — whether she wants to or not. She is, after all, nothing but a set of reproductive organs in a prom dress, and therefore unfit to make any decisions for herself.
I hope you've recovered your breath after that Lol-a-thon, because here is the second quiet gem in this masterwork:
Transcript:
[The logo of Dumbdumb, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman's venture flashes on the screen
There is techno/porn-ish music playing. The screen shows the back of a pig-tailed woman in a red robe walking to a back stage area. Overlaid is the text: “Orbit Dirty Shorts presents”.]
Off-screen announcer: Whoo! Already boys! Can I have your attention for a young lady who's making her debut. [Text on screen: “The Dancer.” The crowd sounds raucous.]
[In a dressing room]
Stripper in Blue Robe: For a lunchtime crowd, those guys are out of control. You must be the new girl. [laughs quietly, cruelly] Tough crowd for your first dance. Hope it's not your last.
Stripper in Red: Actually [We hear a low voice. Stripper in Blue turns, confused and disgusted.]... [Suddenly we see the Stripper in Red. Surprise! It's Jason Bateman wearing some sort of cowgirl outfit and a tacky wig.] that's the plan.
Blue: Good luck.
Bateman: [plays with wig] Thank you, but it's not needed, because my gun [reaches to belt, pretends to pull out a gun] is loaded. [Bateman turns to the camera, showing that he's pulled out a pack of Orbit. There's some kind of funky westernish gunny sound.]
[Visual of someone in a tacky fur-ish robe coming through the curtains on to the stage. The crowd sounds excited. We see Bateman riding a child's hobby horse.]
[Guys at the bar are yelling woo-hoo and trying to make lasso motions with their hands. They seem pretty drunk. Bateman hops around on the toy horse.]
[Bateman grabs one of two stripper poles, and begins to kiss the horse. The guys yell approvingly.]
[Bateman taps the guys at the bar on the head with the horse and smiles. The guys are excited. They cheer and clap as Bateman continues to dance.]
Dude 1: [holding some money] I'm gonna get some kisses tonight, boys!
[Bateman takes of his vest. There's a close up of his legs in fishnets. The dudes continue to leer and yell.]
[Bateman puts his hat on Dude 2 and touches his nose.]
Dude 1: Hey cowgirl, why don't you and I hit the bridal path together?
Dude 3: I wanna hold your horses! [slaps dude on back]!
Dude 4: Hey honey, you got me posse-whipped! [Bateman bends down and shakes his chest.]
Back of room dude: She can corral me back to her bedroom anytime! [Dudes erupt: yeah!!!]
[Bateman crawls towards guy with cowboy hat as if to kiss him, pulls back and fans her nose as if guy's breath smells, flirts similarly with the other three dudes at the bar. The crowd approves.]
[Bateman lays with his back to the crowd and pulls out a pack of Orbit. As he unwraps various parts of it, a whip cracks]
[Close up as Bateman holds a piece of Orbit in his teeth for a dude to grab, she continues with other guys. There's a close up of Bateman's foot in red fishnets and high heels, as a guy grabs a piece of Orbit out of the shoe with his teeth. More gum for more dudes]
[[Bateman points her fingers at the crowd as if they were guns.]
Close up of smiling guy with sparkling teeth, a chime chimes.]
First Dude at bar: Oh, you must be cold. [takes of his sweater] Is it the air-conditioning? Hey, sweetheart, here, please, this is cashmere. [hands sweater to Bateman]
Third Dude: [Second dude at bar looks confused, suddenly there's lighter piano music and the dude does that Orbit teeth thingy, puts $100 bill on the bar] You don't have to worry about dinner tonight.
First dude: Tonight? What about the rest of the year? [lays huge gold watch on the bar]
Back row dude: [Back row dude does same tooth thing] Hey Lucy, do you have a car?
Bateman: [In falsetto, coyly] Barely
Back row dude: This is parked out back. [Bateman drops to knees as guy hands him car keys] Or if you don't like $150,000 cars, no big deal, just use that as a down payment on a house, okay.
[Bateman is outside backing up a silver convertible]
[Dudes yell stuff and wave: So long Lucy! Lucy! Take care of yourself! Thank you! Bye!]
[Bateman blows them a kiss, they seem appreciative.]
Bateman: Bye!
Hat dude: Lucy! Lucy! [Dude with cowboy hat is running after the car] Lucy! I felt bad, so I ran across the street and got you something I know you need. [pulls out a pack of Orbit] You gave us all your Orbit.
Bateman: [looks surprised and happy] Oooh!
Hat dude: [pulls gum back, hold out his finger] This time, I get to feed you.
[Bateman looks concerned, then terrified, looks shiftily at the guys fawning over him]
Bateman: [In an even higher falsetto than before] I'll have to leave right away, okay, no long good byes. Just the gum and then off I go. [Music turns ominous]
Hat dude: Okay [gets out gum]
Bateman: Alright?
Hat dude: Yeah
Bateman: Ok. [Bateman takes gum in his mouth makes yum sound. He speeds off as the guys clap and cheer and wave goodbye.]
[There's a chime sound, and the car stops. Bateman steps out.]
Bateman: [In a typically Batemanish voice] Alright, come and get your keys, your sweater, your cash and your watch.
[Dudes look confused]
Dudes in unison: Lucy?!?
[Bateman pulls off wig]
Bateman: It's Larry. Let's do it. [music gets tense, guys stare and smile and chew gum]
First dude: Ah! It was a gag! [music is soft and happy, dudes fall over each other in appreciative laughter] This [unintelligible] was playing around with us.
Bateman: I don't know how to undo, whose watch is this, is this yours?
Some dude: This guy! [laughter]
Bateman: Tough clasp. [hands watch back]
[Screen fades to black, displaying text: A good clean feeling no matter what. Then there are psychedelic backgrounds, presumably matching Orbit's new packaging. The new text reads: Orbit. A good clean feeling no matter what]
Now, this is just sweet. These menfolk are looking at Bateman-the-stripper as nothing more than an object of lust, until the gum has its magical character-building effect on them and, as eastsidekate (who sent me these links) said, they "fall over themselves to respect him (by giving him their property)". Because that is what respect is all about to the ladies, right? Give us your stuff!
The sweetness is ever-so-subtly, um, spiced with that leetle moment after Bateman takes off the wig and confesses he's Larry, not Lucy, which suggests the possibility that the five men, having been deceived by this man-in-a-dress into finding him-in-the-guise-of-her sexually attractive, may do something . . . unpleasant to Bateman. But thank all that is good and holy in the world for gum! Because vigorous chewing makes that moment just pass right on by, and they and we can all have a good laugh!
The sad thing is, some people have no appreciation for humor, especially humor of the edgy and ironic variety. They will totally overlook the fact that it's cis, heterosexual men behaving crassly in these videos, get their panties in a twist and start hysterically seeing "misogyny" and "transphobia" in them. You just can't win with some folks, because they are irrational and brainless, being nothing more than sets of reproductive organs, whether of the "right" kind or the "wrong" kind, and reproductive organs are notoriously irrational and have no sense of humor whatsoever.
Pity the poor edgy marketing person. Gum is not a very edgy product. Gum is kind of . . . gummy. So you try to have a little fun with sex, being all 21st century and edgy and shit, and these humorless, sex-hating prudes predictably start freaking out (which is just part of the fun, innit?)
Except these purveyors of gum and video infection are not having a little fun with sex. There's no sex in these videos. None whatsoever. That would be edgy. You want to be funny and bold and actually take some risks, rather than make fun of the risks less powerful people have no choice but to live with? Put some actual sex in your videos, and get creatively funny about it, rather than exploitative.
There's plenty of room for that, because unlike playing for laughs the male struggle for ownership of female sexuality, predation by male authority figures on young girls, the lying, gold-digging sex worker who has all the power over men oblivious in the grasp of sexual desire, and the "natural" cis-het male instinct to murder one of those deceptive-guys-in-a-dress-if-you-know-what-we-mean-no-what-did-you-think-we-meant-it's-just-a-joke-it's-Jason-Bateman-for-Chrissake, combining genuine human sexuality with genuine humor has not been the basis for some raggedy-ass joke somewhere on this planet approximately every five seconds since the emergence of the patriarchy.
Oh, but you don't really want to take any risks at all yourselves, do you, you tired makers of tired ads? You just want to make fun of the same old same-old, i.e. women and those who you have deemed are supposed to be guys but are too much like ladies or wanna be ladies or some fucked up non-guy-being thing.
I dunno. Did those videos leave you with "a good clean feeling"? Me, not so much.
Transcripts by eastsidekate.
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